What’s Wrong With America

The Los Angeles Times reports on the surprising–to some–consequences of Obamacare, here:

Thousands of Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them — and many don’t like what they see.

These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years.

Now Harris, a self-employed lawyer, must shop for replacement insurance. The cheapest plan she has found will cost her $238 a month. She and her husband don’t qualify for federal premium subsidies because they earn too much money, about $80,000 a year combined.

“It doesn’t seem right to make the middle class pay so much more in order to give health insurance to everybody else,” said Harris, who is three months pregnant. “This increase is simply not affordable.”

Notice that Ms. Harris isn’t opposed to subsidies in general; she was just hoping to be on the receiving end. Harris thinks it is wrong to “make the middle class pay so much more,” but if tax and rate increases were limited to the “rich”–in general, a “rich” person is someone who makes more money than you do–she apparently would be all for it. And Harris isn’t alone:

Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said she received a recent letter from a young woman complaining about a 50% rate hike related to the healthcare law.

“She said, ‘I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'” Kehaly said.

Lenin wrote that the only question in politics is “Who-whom.” Filling in the ellipsis, the question is, Who is screwing whom? Sadly, many Americans–based on recent election results, perhaps a majority–are now Leninists. In their eyes, government is merely a means to steal someone else’s money. They rebel only if it turns out that they are on the wrong end of the screwing. This is, to put it very mildly, not what the Founders had in mind.